MANILA, Philippines - President Aquino and the Supreme Court (SC) are open to a dialogue to ease tensions sparked by his show of distaste for the high court’s decisions on cases involving the previous Arroyo administration.
The issue came to a head on Monday when Aquino – addressing the 1st National Criminal Justice Summit – berated the judiciary, particularly Chief Justice Renato Corona, who was seated just a few feet from him.
“Of course. Let no one say we never tried,” Aquino said when asked if he is willing to talk with Corona to settle their differences.
“I would like to think that the chief justice will make himself available if and when there is really an invitation (for dialogue),” SC spokesman Midas Marquez said, referring to an offer from some Catholic bishops to mediate between Aquino and Corona.
But Marquez stressed that any initiative to settle the conflict with the executive branch would not come from the judiciary since it felt it had done nothing wrong to invite contemptuous treatment by Malacañang.
“There is nothing really on our end that would say the court is doing something to perhaps make the situation worse,” he pointed out. Marquez said the high court is “just performing its constitutional mandate to interpret the laws.”
Earlier, Sorsogon Bishop Arturo Bastes proposed that prelates with “moral ascendancy” help resolve the escalating conflict between the judiciary and the executive branches.
Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile had also proposed that Catholic bishops or other religious leaders step in to resolve the dispute.
Urged to sit with Aquino and Corona are outgoing Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales, incoming Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Tagle, Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines president Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma and Cebu Archbishop Emeritus Ricardo Cardinal Vidal.
Bastes said an end to the animosity between the executive and the judiciary should be one of the highlights of this year’s celebration of Christmas.
“I am okay with that, especially this Christmas time. A time for peace, reconciliation, understanding and respect for each other. Pope Benedict XVI is correct when he said that this Christmas, we should have an internal reflection and especially repentance,” Bastes said.
But he advised the President not to badmouth the judiciary. “I would say that the President should respect the judiciary because that is an independent branch of the government,” he said.
“President Aquino should be advised that he should not do that, especially public quarreling and then the media is trying to expose everything and to play over it. For me, that is not good example,” he said.
“It is my desire that he would no longer engage in that. He should concentrate more on how to address the poverty and hunger in the country,” the Sorsogon bishop added.
“The nation must have justice, otherwise, without justice, there would be no peace. Justice should be accompanied by love, so justice and love would bear the fruit of peace,” Marbel, South Cotabato bishop Dinualdo Gutierrez said.
“As servants of the country, they should be open, sensitive to the sentiments of the people. There are a lot of personal things that they have to set aside or discuss privately,” said Kalookan Bishop Deogracias Iniguez.
For former Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz, the bishops should wait to be invited and not volunteer to mediate in any dialogue.
“The truth of the matter is that the one who would decide, whether Church or CBCP would mediate or not, is not the Senate President but the parties themselves concerned – the chief justice and the President,” he said.
“But offhand, I would like to say this – that based on the actuation of President, especially with reference to his pronouncement on the Reproductive Health (RH) bill, he does not care if the Church excommunicates him, that means that he has lost not exactly his faith, but his trust in the Church as an institution and therefore, that being the case, if an intervention of the CBCP was realized. I would find it very hard to concede that the President would go by what the Church says,” Cruz added.
‘Debate healthy’
While some quarters appealed for an end to the word war between the President and the judiciary, Vice President Jejomar Binay said the issue is actually healthy for democracy.
“Debate makes better results,” Binay said Tuesday night.
In his speech at the closing of the first National Criminal Justice Summit, Binay said that while Aquino’s tirade may have ruffled feathers, it has also highlighted “the vigor and strength of the legal profession and the healthy debate that is going on.” He said this “must be encouraged between and among the three branches of our government,” Binay said.
“Not only specific laws are subject to change, but the very concept of law is itself subject to change. This must be debated, and it is best that the debate take place not only within academe and the legal profession but primarily within government itself,” Binay said.
But Associate Justice Lucas Bersamin said tirades against the SC outside of the mechanisms provided by law – including impeachment proceedings – would bring disaster to the system of separation of powers and undo an age-old constitutional structure.
He believes that the separation of powers of the three coequal branches of government – executive, legislative, and judiciary – is under attack “by weakening the system of checks and balances among them.”
“It is important, therefore, that we bear in mind that in the nature of republicanism ours is not an absolutely popular system but a representative one, by which the people at large have for the meantime delegated the exercise of their sovereignty to the officials in the three great departments,” he stressed.
Bersamin revealed that the justices of the SC resent unfounded insinuations against them that “tend to diminish respect for the institution of the courts and for the rule of law” despite the mechanisms for holding justices and judges accountable to the sovereign people.
“Justices and judges might not defend themselves in public. Nor do they engage in argument and debate in public on issues passed upon or still to be passed upon by the courts. That is the chief reason why the Supreme Court has appointed a spokesperson who is not a judicial officer,” he lamented.
Bersamin likewise virtually criticized the alleged defiance of the Department of Justice on the temporary restraining order issued by the SC on the watchlist order against former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who appointed 12 of the 15 current justices, including Corona, when she was still president.
“It becomes our unique duty and responsibility as lawyers to make that fealty to the Rule of Law abide,” Bersamin said.
He issued the statement in his speech at the alumni homecoming of the University of the East College of Law last Nov. 24, days before President Aquino publicly slammed Corona last Monday.
No Fidel Castro
It was Justice Secretary Leila de Lima’s turn yesterday to take up the cudgels for President Aquino, crying foul over comparison of her boss to Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
“It’s too unfair. That seems to be already a farfetched scenario,” she said of the comparison made by constitutional expert Fr. Joaquin Bernas in reaction to Aquino’s verbal attacks on the Supreme Court and on Chief Justice Renato Corona. Bernas had called the President’s diatribe “really alarming” and praised Corona for keeping his cool.
De Lima said that Bernas, in making the comparison, showed he “doesn’t know the President that well and doesn’t understand the real vision of this administration.”
“I don’t think this President has ever the tendencies or psyche to be autocratic or dictatorial if that was the meaning of the correlation he (Fr. Bernas) made to Castro. That’s unfair. This government has no tendencies like that,” she told reporters in an ambush interview.
De Lima, Aquino’s most popular Cabinet secretary based on surveys, pointed out that the President was just “echoing sentiments of majority of the people and the President wanted to be forthright in articulating what’s on the mind of these people.”
De Lima believes the tongue lashing Corona and the SC received from the President was “acceptable” and “in the interest of majority of the people.”
“Can you fault this government if we are determined, if we show firm resolve, in seeking justice, especially on the sins of the previous administration? What’s wrong with that?”
She echoed the President’s insinuation that the high court seemed to be always making things hard for the executive department. “Every step of the way there is an obstacle,” she said, citing the fate of the truth commission as first proof of the SC’s reluctance to help the administration prosecute Arroyo and her former officials. The SC declared as unconstitutional Executive Order 1 creating a truth commission.
“It (SC declaration) hindered or frustrated administration efforts to deliver justice or exact or impose accountability,” De Lima pointed out.
“That’s very exasperating on our part,” she said, adding that while the judiciary is a coequal branch of the executive and the legislative branches, it is “never meant to be independent from the people and the will of the people.”
Several groups like the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption and the Integrated Bar of the Philippines have voiced concerns over Aquino’s tirade against the SC, with some even demanding that he apologize to the high court.
Fight continues
Aquino, meanwhile, reiterated his administration’s commitment to eliminate corruption and punish erring officials, including his predecessor.
“Handa po tayong makipagtuos kahit kanino, dahil alam kong nasa likod ko ang sambayanan sa paghahangad ng katotohanan, sa pagnanais na parusahan ang mga nagkasala at sa pangingibabaw ng katarungan sa ating bayan (We are ready to face anyone, because I know the people are behind us in our quest for truth, accountability and justice for everybody),” he said during the conferment of presidential awards for this year’s most outstanding barangay courts.
“Hindi po natin hahayaang basta na lang lumayas o makatakas sa batas ang umagrabyado sa mga Pilipino. Mayaman ka man o mahirap, nasa katungkulan ka man o pangkaraniwang mamamayan, kailangan mangibabaw ang batas sa tuwid na daan (We will not allow anyone who took advantage of the Filipino to just flee and escape from the law. Whether you are rich or poor, in power or ordinary citizens, the law in the straight path must prevail),” Aquino said.
Earlier in the day at the awarding of the Ten Outstanding Young Men for this year at the Rizal Hall of the Palace, the President called on the youth to help the government carry out reforms.
“Reform is not just the obligation of your government; it is the call of our times in everything we do. If we really want to eliminate poverty, to weed out corruption, and to promote inclusive growth and lasting progress in the Philippines, we need you to be on the side that supports our agenda,” Aquino said.
“Be trustworthy, responsible, and continue to take part in our collective responsibilities as one Filipino people. Prove that we Filipinos can be a successful people, who belong to a country and a society that rewards virtue and punishes wrongdoing,” Aquino said.
“I ask all of you to join me in the most ambitious effort to transform this country to one that we can truly be proud of. When we assumed office a year and a half ago, we were drowning in a sinkhole of poverty and corruption. Today, we have seen just how capable we are of rising above the expectations and the future that others had laid out for us; we have seen just how much has changed and can change in our country. But much is left to be done, and your government cannot do it alone,” Aquino said. With Aurea Calica, Evelyn Macairan, Jose Rodel Clapano, Sandy Araneta - By Edu Punay and Delon Porcalla
